What can you do with an old machine? Well it does depend on the machine.
BUT with the right machine it turns out, quite a bit.
The acer aspire 5935G, first glance just a typical machine of the era:
T6600 2.2ghz core 2
4GB DDR3 PC6400 800mhz
HD4570 512MB DDR2
500GB 5400rpm HDD
1366x768 display
90W brick
It has some nice features like a touch media panel and a backlit keyboard but is hardly going to set the world alight.
Let's have a look inside:
That would be an MXM slot. Now we could go crazy:
(that's a 7970M, just using it to flash the P150EM card which could not flash itself)
But considering the possible CPU power that's a bit overkill and stops it going back together fully.
Is a bit more interesting, 7770M, 512 GCN shaders, 1GB GDDR5 (also the right size)
So over the next few days I will be configuring it to the new specifications:
X9100 3.06ghz core 2 (overclock to around 3.4-3.6ghz most likely)
4GB DDR3 PC8500 1066mhz 5-5-5-15
HD7770M 1GB GDDR5
500GB 7200rpm HDD
1366x768 display overclocked to 90hz
Slim 120W brick
Expresscard to 3x USB3 ports
I think that will do for a backup machine, power of a GTX660M level.
BUT with the right machine it turns out, quite a bit.
The acer aspire 5935G, first glance just a typical machine of the era:
T6600 2.2ghz core 2
4GB DDR3 PC6400 800mhz
HD4570 512MB DDR2
500GB 5400rpm HDD
1366x768 display
90W brick
It has some nice features like a touch media panel and a backlit keyboard but is hardly going to set the world alight.
Let's have a look inside:

That would be an MXM slot. Now we could go crazy:

(that's a 7970M, just using it to flash the P150EM card which could not flash itself)
But considering the possible CPU power that's a bit overkill and stops it going back together fully.

Is a bit more interesting, 7770M, 512 GCN shaders, 1GB GDDR5 (also the right size)
So over the next few days I will be configuring it to the new specifications:
X9100 3.06ghz core 2 (overclock to around 3.4-3.6ghz most likely)
4GB DDR3 PC8500 1066mhz 5-5-5-15
HD7770M 1GB GDDR5
500GB 7200rpm HDD
1366x768 display overclocked to 90hz
Slim 120W brick
Expresscard to 3x USB3 ports
I think that will do for a backup machine, power of a GTX660M level.